


A Meditation On Wheelchairs

by Muffinatrix



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, negative feelings about being disabled
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-22 09:50:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22847635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muffinatrix/pseuds/Muffinatrix
Summary: Korra's injuries give her lots of time to think.
Relationships: Korra/Asami Sato
Comments: 3
Kudos: 53





	A Meditation On Wheelchairs

**Author's Note:**

> I think one of the reasons Korrasami was met with some denial is because most people don't realize how intimate it is to trust someone with pushing you in a wheelchair. As a part-time chair user, I wanted to shed some light on that intimacy.  
>  **  
> [Read it to me - Audio version](https://anonfile.com/3eJ8H8i8od/A_Meditation_on_Wheelchairs_ogg)  
> **

She recognizes the sound almost immediately. A ring of rubber peeling and un-peeling itself across the ground. A furniture piece on wheels, large wheels that rock the creaking frame.

This was inevitable, an obvious necessity, but she's not ready to accept it yet. It's all happening too fast and too soon. She shouldn't have this experience, at least not until she has gray hair and smile lines. She's supposed to be the most powerful individual in the world. She built her identity on living up to that expectation. But she lost that title in the course of a few minutes.

She can barely move the parts of her body that aren't outright broken. She can't stay in the airship, but will she have enough strength to push the pushrims?

A blurry maroon blob slings her arm over itself, and lifts up from under her thighs. It hurts. Gravity bends her knees without asking. Oh man, it hurts so much. There were pain pills in the first aid box, but they weren't strong enough. Not nearly strong enough. She suffers in silence as her voice is too weak to scream.

The blob eases her into the contraption, drops down, and holds her hand. A feeling of familiarity rushes in. The hand greeting hers is that of a good friend. Somehow this callused palm is more comforting than any physical softness. She tries to focus her vision, and manages to make out two glossy green eyes staring into hers.

"Can you push yourself, or should I?"

Thank goodness for this amazing woman. Despite the urgent need for medical attention, she senses that her friend will sit and stare and give her all the time she needs to choose.

She always understood that being a global peacekeeper might result in serious injury, but being pushed around in a wheelchair was the most terrifying possibility. They're called handlebars, just like on a bicycle, with one crucial difference: They're on the back, so someone else can "handle" her. Someone she can't see, with their own ideas of what's best for her, deciding her every movement. Even if they wanted to respect her wishes, her voice would travel away from their ears; the emotions on her face would lie out of sight.

_ No, never a wheelchair. Give me a cane, or a crutch, a walker, a rollator; something I can have complete control over; something no one else can do for me. _

But the facts remain. Her legs are broken, so a wheelchair it must be.

She closes her eyes, and imagines her friend behind her, in preparation for what she knows has to happen. The woman who taught her to drive, now driving her. The woman who broke her out of prison, now in control of her.

Somehow, it doesn't seem as scary as when she imagined anyone else. She finds herself picturing the woman's caring gaze and her warm smile, in more focus and detail than her hands on the bars. Maybe, just maybe, it won't be so bad. She opens her eyes to see the same gaze and smile she imagined.

She tries to speak up, but only a whisper comes out. "I…" She has to take a breath between words. "... ch… trust…" She curses the exhausting word for being so long. "... you." Having got all the words out, she breathes a sigh of relief.

Her friend acknowledges the words with a squeeze of her hand, a subtle pressure, ever so gentle, as though anything more could break her. Without another word, those gorgeous green eyes vanish.

The woman in the chair feels an unseen force push the wheels into motion, but knowing that force is her friend, she's not afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this and want more of this kind of story, it leads nicely into [Two Weeks by bazaar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14879297)


End file.
